Hanscom reaching out to small businesses with products industry day Published June 12, 2013 By Patty Welsh 66th Air Base Group Public Affairs HANSCOM AIR FORCE BASE, Mass. -- Hanscom will host a small business products industry day at the Conference Center here Aug. 1. The Hanscom Small Business Office, Hanscom Program Executive Offices and Hanscom Contracting Directorate have teamed together this year to come up with creative ways to improve interaction with small businesses, as the Defense Department looks to increase collaboration with the small business community to allow for more agility and innovation. In addition, the DoD has often been challenged to reach its yearly small business goals. To get credit for achieving goals, buying offices need to award contracts directly to a small business and do not get credit for a large business awarding subcontracts to a small business. According to Bill Donaldson, Hanscom Small Business specialist, Hanscom has always done well regarding small business contracts, but there is always room for improvement. The industry day is one way to do that. "We want to provide small businesses the opportunity and visibility to showcase their capabilities," said Patrick Hamilton, Contracting Directorate procurement analyst, who is organizing the products industry day event. On the industry day, representatives from small businesses will have an opportunity to brief their product capabilities to representatives from Hanscom's program executive offices: Battle Management or C3I&N (Command, Control, Communications, Intelligence and Networks). The PEOs will be looking for what fits in with their respective missions. For the C3I&N organization, their mission is to connect warfighters with affordable, secure and war-winning cyber, C3I and network systems. Battle Management personnel develop, test, acquire, field and sustain systems to provide Air Force, joint and coalition decision makers information required to succeed on modern battlefields. They also direct national priority airborne and ground-based systems to deliver integrated capabilities that secure air and space superiority. A full listing of each organization's mission areas can be found on the "Mission" charts in the "Attachments" section of the notice regarding the event on Federal Business Opportunities here. "This will ensure we can target specific areas of interest - capabilities that will align with future requirements of our PEOs," said Hamilton. "It is a way to facilitate market research to increase small business competition while focusing on small business capabilities; additionally it puts the small businesses in touch with the correct people." In order to attend, interested small businesses must be registered as a small business under a North American Industrial Classification System, or NAICS, code. The codes covering this specific event can also be found on the FedBizOpps notice. The next step for those who'd like to participate is to submit a short product description of 10 pages or less by June 18 that describes their product or components to the respective PEO's point of contact. The full details for how to submit are available on FedBizOpps. Note that papers for "services" or "information technology" will not be accepted unless the equipment is a component of a non-IT product. According to Hamilton, a very successful small business reverse matchmaking session was held in March that was more service based. This event is intended to highlight small businesses abilities and capabilities from more of a "product" perspective. Briefings to the PEOs will be held concurrently in order to accommodate the most briefings. Slots will be provided on a first-come, first-serve basis. Businesses are encouraged to only register with one PEO; however, the information presented will be shared. Presentations will be limited to 15 minutes, and due to space limitations, no more than 10 representatives per small business can attend. "We are taking time to focus on small businesses and seeing how we can increase their participation in Hanscom and Air Force programs," said Hamilton. For additional information on the event, visit the FedBizOpps site or contact Hamilton at patrick.hamilton@hanscom.af.mil.